By definition, the first of anything in whatever field is special, a euphoric event that can never be recreated.
The gang at Toronto-based Temperance Investment Corp. — a firm set up to provide royalty-based financing to both private and public companies — is now experiencing that feeling.

Last year's edition of ET500 hit the stands in the middle of September amid all the excitement and euphoria over a new government with clear majority after 30 years and a mandate to bring the economy back in shape. The benchmark equity indices were scaling new peaks so often that most large caps looked richly valued. That prompted us to look for value in the mid-cap segment. "Multibaggers of Tomorrow" was our theme story suggesting some mid-sized gems to investors for further research. As we bring out this year's edition, the euphoria has given way to cautious optimism.

Thorsten Beck, Hans Degryse, Christiane Kneer, 8 April 2013Growing the financial sector was viewed as a viable 21st-century competitiveness policy for small, agile nations in the 2000s. Things have changed. This column reviews the empirical literature arguing for a distinction between two roles: finance as intermediation or facilitator, and finance as a growth sector in itself.

At one level and in most economics textbooks, this is an easy question with a rather encouraging answer. The financial sector connects savers and borrowers – providing “intermediation services”. You want to save for retirement and would obviously like your savings to earn a respectable rate of return. I have a business idea but not enough money to make it happen by myself. So you put your money in the bank and the bank makes me a loan. Or I issue securities – stocks and bonds – which you or your pension fund can buy.